your seat; I would have ordered that his ears be pulled, saying, “The Messenger of Allah ﷺ has spoken,” while you reply, “ʿAtāʾ, Ṭāwūs, Manṣūr from Ibrāhīm, and al-Ḥasan.” Does anyone have a proof to set beside the Messenger of Allah ﷺ?! (1)
With the same chain back to Abu Ismāʿīl, he said: Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah, the jurist, dictated to us; I heard Aḥmad ibn Muhammad ibn Farāshah, the jurist, in Marw; I heard Aḥmad ibn Manṣūr al-Shīrāzī; I heard al-Ḥasan ibn Muhammad al-Ṭabarī; I heard Muhammad ibn al-Mughīrah; I heard Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā; I heard al-Shāfiʿī.
ʿUmar ibn Muhammad also dictated to us; Muhammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Sāwī (2) in Marw informed us; Muhammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Marwazī narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn Muhammad al-Marwazī narrated to us; Abu al-Faḍl Ṣāliḥ ibn Muhammad al-Rāzī narrated to us; I heard al-Buwayṭī; I heard al-Shāfiʿī say:
“If I see a man from the people of hadith, it is as though I have seen a man from among the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.” (3)
Al-Buwayṭī added: Al-Shāfiʿī said, “May Allah reward them well, for they have preserved the foundation for us, and thus they enjoy a special merit over us.”
(1) Al-Bayhaqi, Manaqib, 1/214-215; Adab al-Shafi‘i, 1/177-178; Yaqut, Mu‘jam al-udaba’, 17/295; al-Razi, Manaqib, p. 100.
The Prophet said: “Has Aqil left us any house?” He uttered this during his Farewell Pilgrimage—or on the day of the Conquest—when someone asked him: “Will you stay in your own house in Mecca?” Al-Shafi‘i inferred from it that, had private houses in Mecca been common property, the Prophet would simply have answered: “We shall lodge wherever we happen to be, for every house is lawful to us.” Instead, he pointed out that the houses which had belonged to their forefathers had been sold by Aqil b. Abi Talib before his conversion to Islam; therefore nothing could be claimed back and he concluded: “Aqil has left us no dwelling.”
The hadith is reported from Usama b. Zayd by al-Bukhari, 3/360-361 (Book of Hajj, “Inheritance, sale and purchase of the houses of Mecca”; Book of Jihad, “Property of converts living in enemy territory”; Book of Maghazi, “Where the Prophet planted the banner on the day of the Conquest”); by Muslim, no. 1351 (Book of Hajj, “Staying in Mecca and inheriting its houses”); by Abu Dawud, no. 2910 (Book of Inheritance, “Does a Muslim inherit from a non-Muslim?”); and by al-Bayhaqi in his Sunan, 6/34.
(2) The adjective is derived from Sawa, a town located between Rayy and Hamadhan.
(3) The report has already been cited above, pp. 59-60, note 1.